Patents and Public Interest – Musings from the Thai Compulsory License Controversy

/ By / Patent

The conflict (or apparent conflict) between patent rights and public health once again came into the limelight with the Thai government granting compulsory licenses to three patented drugs. On November 29 last year, the Thai government made its first strike with the announcement that it was granting a compulsory license to the Government Pharmaceutical Organization of Thailand (Click Here) for production of Merck’s patent on Efavirenz (an AIDS drug sold as Stocrin). Following closely in line was the compulsory license …

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RANBAXY vs PFIZER ("LIPITOR") SCORECARD

/ By / Uncategorized

I had posted on the Lipitor litigation sometime back and promised to come back with more analysis. The Lipitor litigation is unfortunately too complex and scattered to track. Here’s a helpful site that helps you track this. The IP Kat reports: “The Lipitor Scorecard is a popular feature of IP scholar and strategist Duncan Bucknell’s website. It charts the state of progress – and eventually the result – of the disputes between Ranbaxy and Pfizer over the Lipitor patent in …

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INDIAN PATENTS AND THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION

/ By / Patent

  The Indian Patent Office website now has a separate section on what kind of information can be accessed under the “Right to Information Act”. I’m curious to know if any one has attempted to access information under this and what the results have been. I understand that the RTI was invoked in the context of the Tenofovir opposition. For those not familiar with this case, here is an extract from the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) # 6027, 15 May …

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NOVARTIS CASE TRANSFERRED TO THE IPAB

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Pursuant to the last post on this topic, the Madras (Chennai) High Court has transferred the Novartis matter to the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). As I’d mentioned earlier, this is circuitous, as the matter is likely to find its way back to the High Court, by way of a writ petition against the order of the IPAB. For those of you interested in a succinct exposition of this case, read this article from IP-Watch, a news service that is …

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NOVARTIS CASE BEFORE THE IPAB?

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Lawyer’s Collective, the leading public interest service provider in India that represents patient groups in the Novartis case does a great job of keeping us updated on what’s going on in court. Their latest email on the “commons law” email listserv talks about a potential shift of the Novartis proceedings from the High Court to the IPAB (Intellectual Property Appellate Board). “Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 01:25:12 -0700 (PDT)From: “chan park” To: [email protected], [email protected]: [Commons-Law] Novartis Update 3.4.07 The Indian …

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ACADEMICS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE JUDICIARY

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Just came across Adam Liptak’s interesting piece titled “When Rendering Decisions, Judges Are Finding Law Reviews Irrelevant” in the New York Times. Liptak captures an interesting judicial perspective on how relevant US law review articles really are. Very important lessons here, particularly for Indian academics that seek to make impact on the judiciary. Particularly relevant in the context of intellectual property, where we are bound to see a large number of cases in the post pharma patent environment. Unfortunately, the …

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BIG PATENTS ARRIVE IN INDIA!! FIRST USEFUL PATENT DATABASE

/ By / Patent

As many of us know, the Indian Patent Office does not do a great job of making information publicly accessible/available. Currently, it publishes patent applications through its weekly journal, (in both print and electronic formats) containing only bare essentials such as the abstract, title of the invention, convention priority date and applicant details. A copy of the complete specification has to be requested in writing from the Patent Office. Apart from this, the Patent Facilitating Centre (PFC) of TIFAC provides …

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CONSTRUCTIVELY ENGAGING WITH THE MASHELKAR COMMITTEE REPORT: A RESPONSE TO DWIJEN RANGNEKAR

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Dwijen Rangnekar, a prolific writer in the area of geographical indications (amongst other things), emailed me a copy of his recent article in the EPW (Economic and Political Weekly) dealing with the Mashelkar Committee Report, asking what I thought about it. Reluctant as I am in wasting any more time addressing the personal attacks generated by this report, Dwijen’s article is an exception, since it helpfully engages with the substance of the TRIPS arguments. I’ve been making a call for …

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Yahoo! In Hot Pickle

/ By / Copyright

      Yahoo! has been in the midst of a spicy controversy since it launched its Malayalam portal last month. A number of bloggers from Kerala, lead by Ms. Surya Gayathri attacked Yahoo for allegedly plagiarizing content from their blogs. Ms. Surya Gayathri, who had posted her recipe for Erunellika (Gooseberry pickle) on her blog (Kariveppilla – see image) was shocked to find her recipes copied verbatim on the Yahoo portal (For a translation of recipes on the Yahoo …

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THE MASHELKAR COMMITTEE REPORT AND “INDUSTRY” CAPTURE ALLEGATIONS

/ By / Uncategorized

I was greeted this morning by a TOI editorial written by a colleague of mine from Oxford, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, who now teaches at the National Law School, Bangalore. I’ve always respected Sudhir as someone who exuded academic rigour—and was therefore surprised at reading an editorial that rested on superficial analysis and touted fancy terms. Even more surprising was the fact that this came after we had exchanged some communications on this theme in the past. Sudhir had emailed asking for …

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